Work It Like A Mum
Work It Like A Mum
How to Craft a Standout CV & LinkedIn Profile
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In this episode of the Work it Like a Mum Podcast, we’re sharing the third session from Smash 26, our two-day virtual event designed to help women start the year with confidence, clarity and momentum in their careers.
Hosted by recruitment expert Elizabeth Willits, Founder of Investing Women, who shares nearly two decades of insider hiring experience. Having worked at Hays and Deloitte, Liz has reviewed thousands of CVs and interviewed countless candidates.
In this session, she breaks down exactly how to position yourself as a high-value candidate, on paper, on LinkedIn, and in interviews, so you can stand out and get hired in 2026.
What We Cover:
- How to turn your CV into a value-focused marketing tool
- Structuring experience with measurable impact
- Tailoring applications to stand out
- Optimising your LinkedIn profile for visibility and recruiter searches
- Preparing confident, structured interview answers
Key Takeaways:
- Focus on outcomes, not responsibilities
- Use metrics to prove your impact
- Customisation beats generic applications
- Strong LinkedIn presence increases opportunities
- Preparation and clarity are the foundation of interview success
Why Listen:
Get practical, insider advice to strengthen your CV, boost your LinkedIn visibility, and approach interviews with confidence, so you stand out and position yourself as the obvious choice.
Show Links:
Connect with Elizabeth Willetts on LinkedIn here
View our career coaching services here
Visit the Investing in Women website here
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Hey, I'm Elizabeth Willis, and I'm obsessed with helping as many women as possible achieve their boldest dreams after kids and helping you to navigate this messy and magical season of life. I'm a working mom with over 17 years of equipment experience, and I'm the founder of the Investing in Women Job Board and Community. In this show, I'm honoured to be chatting with remarkable women redefining our working world across all areas of business. They'll share their secrets on how they've achieved extraordinary success after children, the boundaries of balance, the challenges they face, and overcome their own version of success. Shy away from the real talk. Mixed with an inspiring talk. Sprinkled with the career advice you wish you really had at school. So grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. Make sure you're coesing and get ready to get inspired and chase your oldest dreams. Or just survive Mondays. This is the Work It Like a Month podcast. This episode is brought to you by Investing in Women. Investing in Women is a job board and recruitment agency helping you find your dream part-time or flexible job with the UK's most family-friendly and forward-thinking employers. Their site can help you find a professional and rewarding job that works for you. They're proud to partner with the UK's most family-friendly employers across a range of professional industries. Ready to find your perfect job? Search their website at investinginwomen.co.uk to find your next part-time or flexible job opportunity. Now, back to the show. Hello and welcome to the third session of our Smash Week. Um, nail your CV and interviews, stand out and get hired. Do let me know if you can hear me all okay. Um, give us a like or an emoji as you're dialing in. Let me know as well. Is this your first session or have you attended the other two sessions that we've hosted today? Um, if you haven't attended, uh make sure you register because all replays will be sent out if you can't make any live. Um, but in this session, we're going to be talking all about how to name your CB and interviews. Um, stand out, get hired. We're also going to be covering um LinkedIn as well. So I really hope this session helps you. Smash 2026 and make sure you have the year that you want and you deserve. Oh, brilliant third session for quite a few of you. Um, that is fantastic. Um, and like I said, any you can't attend live, just register and replays will be sent out to you. And we're trying to make these as action-packed and practical as possible so you can all go away and put what you have learned today into action. Brilliant! So if you don't know who I am, um my name's Elizabeth Willis. I'm the founder of Investing Women, which is a job board and recruitment company. We've been actually going now for almost five years, which is crazy. Um, but I have um 18 years, nearly well, nearly 19 years now of recruitment experience. So I started my career at Hayes, which is one of the world's largest recruitment consultancies. Um, I started back in 2007, so a long time ago, before the financial crisis, um, and I recruited accountants, qualified accountants, into investment banks and large retail banks in London, in the city, before moving into HR recruitment, also with Hayes, again, where I recruited HR professionals into banking and financial services, and then I moved in-house to Deloitte, which is one of the um the big four consulting and accounting firms where I recruited their consultants as a talent acquisition manager before founding Investing in Women in 2021. So during my career, I reviewed thousands, if not millions, now of CVs, interviewed thousands of candidates. So I definitely know a good applicant when I see you. So in this session, I'm going to be bringing you my top tips on how to write a CV that opens doors, a LinkedIn profile recruiters will love, and how to prepare for an interview that will land you that job offer. All right, I think I've been on LinkedIn since it started as well, because it was, I think, around the time I started at Hayes. So a long time ago. So I love this quote from Albert Einstein because this I think is how you should everybody should be framing how they view their not just their CV, um, not just their job search strategy, but also their career as well, because this is how employers are going to view you. Um Albert Einstein, the very wise Albert Einstein, his he said strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. And the most valuable employees, um, and we'll come on to what makes somebody um a valuable employee, but they are gonna find it so much easier to find a job, to keep a job, to progress up a career ladder, and it's how to um not just be a valuable employee, but also how to show that you are a valuable employee as well, particularly in your job search, which is obviously what we are gonna be speaking about in this session. But it's how are you selling that value to potential employers? So, what you're gonna learn today, why CV structure is more important than you think, why keyword research and tailoring your CV to each job is more important than ever, and it's getting more and more important with um AI, how to stand out and differentiate yourself from the competition, my secret to keeping your CV detailed enough without going over the magic two pages, the CV mistake that could cost you the interview, the importance of LinkedIn and tips to create a standout LinkedIn profile, and um interview prep tips to help you land your dream role. We also have a more in-depth um interview training session tomorrow with our recruitment manager, Adele. So make sure you um you come from that, come for that. But yeah, like I said, I know Louisa's asked about the recording. Yeah, all recordings for all sessions are going to be shared with people after each session. So make sure you're registered, even if you can't attend live. Any questions as we're going through, I will answer them at the end. So please pop questions in the comments, and I will do my best to answer them at the end of the session. So creating a standout CV, and this is this is the document that's going to open the door for you for the vast majority of um candidates in the vast majority of situations. Uh it's a sales document, basically, and it's selling you and your experience. So, how do we write this a sales document? So, appearance, first of all, and I think it's so important, more important than ever, that we have to realize that AI is doing now a lot of the filtering for a lot of organizations, it's only going to be really small businesses that have that don't have volume recruitment, that don't won't invest in AI to do the first filter. So it's really important, I think, to go in with our eyes wide open and to know that in the first instance, unless we have an in, unless we know somebody that works in that business, the vast majority of time it's going to be a computer that reads your CV. Therefore, it needs to be readable, skimmable, digestible by a computer. And appearance is one thing that you know, I don't think it needs to include. I've never thought this, it never needs to include any fancy, i.e., distracting graphics. AI doesn't care. Once you get past that, the hire manager, unless you are applying for a graphic design role, they don't care. They want to be able to see what you have done. So need to be once it's passed as well, AI, it needs to be really skimmable. So if you think as a recruiter, you might come in on a Monday morning and you could have hundreds of CVs and hundreds of applications for um the job that you are recruiting for. You need to be able to skim your that CV and pick out the information really quickly, really easily, and see if the person um can do the job that you are recruiting for. So keep the font clean. Um, I've put some suggested fonts, easy to read, size 11 from the main points, 14 headings. Use black text on a white background, break it up, you don't want it too heavy. Because, like I said, a recruiter is busy, they're gonna be skimming your document, skimming your CB, gonna be spending seconds on it. Um, and that is the brutal truth. Um, and that is probably once it's past AI, so it needs to be easy to read. Okay, sorry, I'm on the wrong thing. So, obviously, personal details at the top, and it's crazy the amount of times people forget to include these, and I just I don't understand why, because it's really hard then to contact somebody. So I've had people that have sent me CVs, included their name, and forgotten to include a phone number. So you need to include contact information because if you get invited for an interview and the recruiter can't contact you, then that's it, you've lost we've lost the interview. So you might not want to put your full address, I get that, because of you know data privacy, etc. But please pop your town because we do need to know where you live. So, for example, we're recruiting for a role in London, it's a remote-based role. Um, but the hiring manager and the employer wants somebody that she can see time to time. So she needs somebody that is going to be based within an hour of where she lives. So it's really important we know where you live, even if you don't put your full postal address, or you might apply for a role, you might not be right for the role that you've applied for today, but you might be perfect for a role we're recruiting for next week in X-Town. So if we know that you live in X-town, that's brilliant because we can contact you about that role. So at least pop in your town, your email address, obviously the phone number, like I said, if you get an interview, we need to be able to contact you. We need to be able to contact you quickly and linked in profile. You can include a hyperlink to that, just neating it up, um, if applicable. Okay, and then under your contact details, a personal profile. So these are a few sentences directly under your personal details, but tell me hiring manager, it doesn't need to be big, it's basically a professional Instagram bio, three, four lines tops. You don't want to, it's not war and peace. You don't want to be basically taking up most of the page because we need to get your experience quite high up on the page. Um, so a few sentences, like I said, under the um contact details, tell the hiring manager who you are, what your key experience is, why you're looking for work, and if you're making a career pivot, why you're making a pivot. And highlight some of the key achievements, what makes you unique, um, and like I said, why you're looking for a ROM. Um, so yeah, make sure that is included because that's just a little bit of an impact um statement. Then career history. So this um this is where obviously we include every job, well, not every job, but um jobs you've had, um, start starting with the most recent job first, then add previous job in reverse chronological order. If you've been working 30, 40 years, when I said not every job, you might want to include older jobs that maybe no longer relevant to what you're you've done at the end, sort of group them a little bit. Um so you obviously start with most recent job first, but try and keep it relevant, or maybe if you've done some temp roles, you might just group them together. Um, but yeah, you want to be using job title first as a header in bold, followed by obviously your employer name, including dates employed from until. I always recommend that you put the dates to the right side of the page. The reason being is that we skim left to right. So everything on the left of the page is going to be much more prominent, noticeable. We're gonna remember it a bit more. And the dates, if you're concerned that you've maybe not worked somewhere very long or you've had a career break, we're less likely to notice dates if they're on the right side of the page. It's just how our brain is wired. Um, and then under career history, pop your education. Start again with your most recent education first and work backwards. Include dates attended, which institution, what you studied, grades if you did well, add all relevant training and professional qualifications to this section. I would always say put education below career history unless you are a recent graduate, in which case pop the education first. Most of you watching this session, probably not the case, but if you might have children that are graduates, in which case get them to put the education first. Everyone else, if you've been working a couple of years, pop education below um, below job, below all your jobs. If you have done a professional qualification and maybe you got first-time passes, you so remember it's a sales document. So what the selling parts of your experience. So if you're, for example, I just remember when we were recruited accountants, we would always ask, did you get first-time passes for those? And that, if they got that, we would include that, that they got first-time passes for that particular accountancy qualification because that's a selling point for them. Maybe you got a first class degree. So let's pop you got a first class or a two-one. If you got a two, two, probably wouldn't include it. Think about what are gonna be the oh, that's good, they've done that. Um, obviously, you can put your IT skills as well. So, Word, Excel, how advanced, uh, PowerPoint, outlook, or your AI experience as well. Now, obviously, that's really important, and then keywords. So, you want to be this is where it's really important, particularly in an AI world um where increasingly CVs are reviewed by bots, and these bots are programmed to look for certain keywords in the job advert. So even if it isn't used by a bot, when I worked at Deloitte, that bit was always outsourced anyway. To some date, she was amazing. In Poland, her English was brilliant, but obviously it wasn't her native language. Actually, me and her had no, you know, actual work experience either of recruiting for the roles we recruited for. So we were told by the hiring managers what keywords you know to look for for phrases. I would then tell her, um, you know, and her first language wasn't English, so it's just actually about making making it more likely that you are going to be picked up and um for an interview because you're gonna pass through that first screen because I said, you know, I've not been an accountant before, but I recruited for accountants, but I might not know some of the more sophisticated terms and phrases that accountants use, you know, internal jargon. So I'm looking for probably as a recruiter for something you know, more simple language as well. So make sure you are mirroring that language that's used in that job advert, and your CV has as much of those particular keywords and phrases as possible, just so it passes a CV sift. And you know, think about the people that are programming. You know, if I'm a recruiter, I might be typing into my AI bot saying, can you look for this particular phrase, this particular phrase, and this particular phrase based on what the um hiring manager has sent me on a job advert. There might be other phrases that are, you know, like I said, internal jargon, but that's not on the job ad. I'm not going to be programming the bot um to look for those either. And then this is it, this is the the real uh icing on the cake. So obviously, we've got the basics, we've got obviously your contact details, the profile at the top. So we've included this, you know, what you've done, uh, your education. Now we need to know what impact you've made. And this is it. This is what you know, you might pass the first AI CV sift, but it's this bit, this bit that's gonna get you the interview, this bit that's gonna get the employer excited, this bit that's gonna position you in a really strong, um, strong point where strong place when you come for an interview, because this is where you are saying it's this is what I can bring to the role, this is what I've done in the past, this is how I'm gonna make your business fly. This is how I'm gonna make a real difference to your business, and every line, Leanne Cooper, we've got lovely Leanne, she's coming on um at quarter past two about confidence, and she she does this with her um clients every line on their CV, so what, so what, so what? And I do that with mine as well when we do the CV, um, our CV writing, because it's why is that important? You know, it might be I review financial statements. Why? Why is that important? And every line as you're writing your CV, think phrase, think in your head, why is this important? Why is this important to the business that I've worked for? And why could it be important to the business that I want to work for moving forward? Because as employers, we are fundamentally, and I say this as a private sector employer, we are fundamentally interested in one of three things. Can you save us time one way or the other? And if you can save us time, how can you save us time and what's going to be the benefit to our business? So, for example, if you're in a role where you're helping a sales team to automate a lot of the boring admin that goes around the sales. So maybe you're not in direct sales, but you're doing all that automation. Brilliant. How much time have you saved that sales team? Tell me in the CPA. Great, and how much revenue then has that generated for that sales team? That's the impact bit because we'll as a business, as a profit, you know, driven business, private sector business, every private sector business needs to make profit. So it all comes back to that. Every single role, front office, back office, middle office, needs to feed into profit, and you need to be able to demonstrate how much profit your role has can or has generated that business. So can you save money? Great, because that that means you've increased profit, or can you make money? Maybe that is you are in sales, that's great. So, how much sales have you generated um in previous roles? So if you haven't been in direct sales, how have your role as your role fed into that? Maybe you're in accounting, so it isn't sales, but actually you produce these financial reports, budgets, forecasts, etc., that you know that you present to the board that then enable them to make better commercial decisions so they can increase sales. So think about that. I think that in all private sector roles, how each role is connected to profit, to sales, to revenue. Then obviously, this is really important. I always love to include some key achievements in my um when I'm writing CVs for clients because um the key achievements is what makes you unique. It what makes it what makes you makes you stand out. Um obviously everyone's key achievement is different. So we need some situation about the challenges that maybe were faced. Um the task, what was your responsibility for overcoming this challenge? Not we did this or we did that, even though we do want everyone to be a good team player. Actually, when it comes to an interview, we're not we're not interviewing a team, we're interviewing one person. And as interviewers or hiring managers, I need to know what was your responsibility in that task? How did you contribute to that task? How did you help resolve, etc.? So what step-by-step action did you take to solve the problem? And how then did this benefit the employer? Did it save them time? Did it save them money? Did it make the money, etc.? Trying to bring it back to that profit um profit. Keep it concise, so try not to go over two to three pages, three pages tops, but anything more than that is just not going to get read. And it just sort of starts looking like you can't really prioritize what's important, it just looks a bit rambly. So keep it two to three pages, and use narrower margins rather than smaller fonts to go over, avoid going over on to the next page. Obviously, proofread, check your CV multiple times, read it repeatedly, send it to someone else. There's no excuse really for not having a um, you know, for having um spelling errors on your CV because there's so many proof um spelling checkers now, you know. Obviously, most have them in built. You can use Grammarly, which is brilliant as well. I mean, for example, we had a candidate that applied for a role that had most recently worked in Dubai and they spelt Dubai wrong, and it was one of the first words on their CV. It was pretty prominent because it was in a header, and you just think, oh, that looks it just looks sloppy, and therefore it rings alarm bells because you start thinking, will this person overlook other things in their role? So try not to have any spelling mistakes. So I've just included some examples of some CVs that I've worked on in my CV Globe, and you can just sort of see the before and after the before. It was really heavy. It wasn't very skimmable. As a recruiter, if you're coming into hundreds of CVs, it's a bit daunting to read something that's quite heavy because it's just you want something really skimmable where I can see exactly what impact you've made. I don't want to be like really searching through a document to find that. So make it really easy for the um employer. We've also highlighted some of these key achievements, the cost savings that they've saved and how they did that, um, and also the revenue that their role generated as well. That's all really important for, like I said, every single private sector employer. So think about how your role feeds into that. Even though this person wasn't in sales, they were in operations, their role did positively impact that bottom line. And it's how you I mean it's basically we made sure in their CV that we um we showed that and demonstrated that. Um, again, just broke it up a little bit so it wasn't as heavy to read because you're just not going to read it. If you've got you know loads of CVs, it's quite you know, want something really easy skimmable. Think about how we our brains have been trained now with social media. We skim through, you know, we look on social media while we're waiting for the bus, we read really short posts on social media, so our brain is trained, um, trained like that as well. So, um then um again, we've got another example here. Just hopefully, this is helping you think about uh also bringing up that experience as well, because that is really important. There's quite a lot of fluff. I find a lot of candidates have quite a lot of fluff before they get into actually the meat of what they've done. Um, and actually, as a recruiter, I want to see what you've done and whether that's relevant for the roles that I am recruiting for. So make sure we're trying to bring that experience up as well. So we've got LinkedIn now, so we'll move on to LinkedIn. I know that you've got there's some questions here. I will do as much as I can. I'm conscious of time because we've got the lovely Leanne at quarter past two. Um, yeah, someone's asked about remote roles. We need to be in with an hour. Yeah, that is still the case for a lot of our remote roles. They do need people that are based within a certain location just because they may sometimes need to attend events or meet, do you know, in-person meetings, etc. Um a volunteering section at the top. Um only if the volunteering section, I would put it at the top if it's relevant to the roles that you're applying for, otherwise, I'd pop it at the bottom. Nicholas asked about putting maternity leave on CV. I probably wouldn't. I think people put career breaks all the time because I think people are really conscious about a career break. I personally wouldn't put a career break on a CV. I obviously have my dates, and then if somebody, and A, because chances are people won't notice there's a gap. Um, and B, if someone asks about a career gap, then you can just tell them them. Um had someone else ask about uh career breaks. Yeah, I just probably wouldn't pop it on, and you know, if somebody notices it, then they can ask. Um, templates encourage photos, yeah, it's a no no, because you're gonna increase the likelihood of bias, positive, negative, whatever. But uh, you know, really a CV is about you and your experience. Um, can you use ChatGPT to polish CV? Yeah, yeah, but make sure you edit it because otherwise they do, particularly cover letters. You can really spot a cover letter that's AI generated. It has to be personal. I actually think the best cover letters aren't Chat GPT because it's more the why you want to work for this business, the why you've got relevant experience, why this speaks to you, that's better. Um yeah. Um obviously, um, there's some quite specific questions. Um, we do do a CV review session, a CV writing session. So if something is really specific, we can cover that in that. Um just having a look if there's something that's more relevant to everyone. Would you advise against a sil skills section? Um, no, not really. Um I wouldn't include a silk skill section. Personally, I much prefer like traditional CVs where I can see what experiences people have done, have had, and whether it's relevant. I say this though, as someone that's been predominantly an agency recruiter, where we are paid. Um, even you know, as a job board, we are paid to find the most relevant candidates for our clients. Um, if you're trying to make a pivot, so maybe that's where you're thinking all about skills, you are much more likely to get a role if you're making a career pivot, um, not through a cold application and definitely not through a recruitment agency because they just won't put you forward. You are much more likely to get that role through your network. So that's something that I would advise because then they're much more likely to overlook if your experience doesn't quite match. Key achievements for each job are just a general section. I'd say each job, probably maybe the most recent jobs, um, maybe most recent two or three jobs, and then you could probably forget the key achievements because I'm just conscious of space on a CV. Um I'm just seeing if there's any other right, I think that's it. Um, so we'll move on now to LinkedIn. So LinkedIn, so LinkedIn is obviously your go-to platform for networking, job hunting, and connecting with industry professionals. So I love LinkedIn. I think of LinkedIn really as a job board with a social media like wrapper on it. Um, and yeah, because it's not just a job board, it's a networking site, and um it's a place as well where you're gonna really develop and grow your career as well. And like I said, if you're trying to make a career pivot, then LinkedIn is gonna be brilliant as well, because it's where you're gonna be able to build those relevant connections and within those organizations, those businesses, those roles that maybe you want to pivot into as well. So, profile optimization, your first impressions count and think about who you are. I think the first thing before you actually do your start adding all this stuff is who when I because I say this to people that run businesses, who's your ideal client avatar? But actually, for employees, who is your ideal employer? What kind of job are you looking for? And how are you gonna portray using LinkedIn and your CB that you are their ideal candidate? So think you know, so we all we all talk about ICA in business, but actually, who is your I EA ideal employer avatar, and make sure then, because then it's so much easier to tailor everything to them. Um, so professional photo, make sure it's bright, clear, you smiling, um, not you on a night out with loads of mates, not you with the drink in your hand. It doesn't need to be a professional photo, as in taken, like where you spend money on it, but it needs to be you looking pretty smart somewhere. You can obviously you can get a friend to take it on a phone, etc. Um, use keywords for the role the industry that you are targeting in your headline and make it quite simple. You don't want to be too fancy with your headline because, as recruiters, we search all day for candidates on LinkedIn and we're searching often for quite basic terms. So if I was searching for a marketing manager in Canterbury, I'd probably just be searching marketing manager in Canterbury. I wouldn't be searching for someone that says grow grows your business through fancy funnels and paid ads and blah blah blah. I'd actually be just probably searching marketing manager. So think about the simplest term that recruiters um, and I'm talking agents recruiters and talent acquisition managers are most likely to be searching for. And then in your about section, I love this because you can make it a little bit more human, you've got more space than you perhaps do on your CV. Um, so highlight your key achievements, your values, your goals, who you are, what you do. Use I rather than third person. I think it's a personal thing, isn't it? I is like I said, it is a social media site as well, and nobody wants to connect with someone that's using, you know, Sarah did this, and Sarah was amazing, and Sarah sounds so much better if you say I did this. And then you want to be building your connection. So you now need to be thinking about who your network is and how to make it relevant for what you your career goals. So it's great if you're connected to your auntie Sue and you know, Bob across the road, but potentially they're not going to help you with your career aspirations. So you now need to be thinking about who is going to help you with your career aspirations, with where you want to go. So you can be searching for people um based on job titles, on company, on industry, on location. You can do this all through free LinkedIn. You get 100 connection requests a week. Probably wouldn't use them all in one day because that might start ringing um alarm bells for LinkedIn. I don't want anyone to get put in LinkedIn jail. So normally 20 a day, and it's consistency, it's habit, it's just going on, doing this, connecting with relevant people that are going to help you and your career. So make sure you're doing that every day and then starting to comment on their posts because that is how you're gonna be remembered by them as well. Um, and that's you know, if you might not feel comfortable doing your own post, but actually people will notice you if you comment on their posts. But you can comment connect also with colleagues, mentors, recruiters, obviously, agents recruiters, talent acquisition managers, companies you want to work for, join relevant groups um for your industry. Once people have connected, just send them a little really quick follow-up saying thanks for connecting. Here's what I do. Really looking forward to work um to getting to know you a little bit better. Doesn't have to be you can also just maybe offer them something as well. But yeah, don't necessarily need to um overthink um that um personal connection request. Actually, I normally just connect with people and then once they're connected, then send them a little follow-up message. And then you want to stand if you can if you're brave, and I encourage you all to be brave, stand out with content because only 1% of people actually post on content, um, post on LinkedIn. It's got over a billion users. LinkedIn is so much easier to stand out than Instagram um or Facebook. Um, LinkedIn still you get a lot of reach on your posts, particularly on personal profiles, not company pages. And this is how you're gonna build that personal brand, um, that thought leadership. Um, and that is actually what's gonna open up doors for you. That is gonna help you progress up a career ladder when you're seen as a thought leader, when you're seen as an expert in your um in your industry. So you could post about industry trends, share news articles, share accomplishments, lessons learned, engage with others, like I said, post via comments. So there's a lot you can do with content. Obviously, you can use AI as well to help you write um your content as well. Um, and yeah, try and include a picture of you because that's going to include um increase the no-like trust factor as well. And that is just gonna help you sort of stand out in a sea of people. Make sure your texts aren't too heavy, like I said with your CV, we've just used to scrolling now. So break it up um a little bit and think about. I think every post has to be quite intentional. Why are you posting this? What is what do you want to be known for? Is this helping your cause? Don't just go on and have a moan about something or other or something always that's completely irrelevant. Tie it back to why you're on LinkedIn in the first place. Every post, just try and tie it back to your mission, if you like, to the reason you're on there, to your career. Um, and that will then make it much more relevant and much more likely to advance your career. Obviously, there's the job search features as well. You can apply to jobs directly on the platform, use the open to work feature, there's the discrete mode if needed, and research companies and recruiters before interviews as well. So you can go on, see who's interviewing you. Obviously, go on their company page. By going on their company page, you'll be able to see their posts, you'll be able to see what's important to them, you'll get an idea of the company values, etc. Um, then we will move over to interviews. Um, right, yeah, someone said about you can have their business-specific banner. Yeah, you could on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's fine. It does make you look a little bit more professional if you want. Um, let me come back to um the comments in a bit. Um, so we've got interview preparation. So obviously, you don't want to wing it, you want to prepare um as much as possible because the more preparation you do, the more confident you are gonna feel, and the more likely you are gonna ace the interview. So, what should you be doing to prepare? So, research, so you want to be knowing the employer. So, for example, when I worked at Deloitte, which is a big four, it's class, it's called one of the big four. The amount of times I would interview candidates and say, Why do you want to work for us? and they would reply, because I want to work for one of the big four. Now, anybody in that industry knows that they are one of the big four. A lot of people that aren't in that industry know that they're in not, um, they're one of the big four. Be like if you if I worked for Goldman Sachs, which is a large investment bank, and I said, Why do you want to work for Goldman's? They might say, I want to work for an investment bank. That doesn't tell me that you have done much, if any, research. So you need to be telling me a lot more. So you might be saying, I don't personally, I don't know much about Goldman Sachs, but I'm not interviewing for them. But you might say, I want to interview for Goldman Sachs because I understand that you are this number one in this industry, you've got this many assets under management, you um specialize in this particular area, you've invested in this, you've competitors at XYZ. How much more compelling is that? So you need to go obviously on the company website, you need to read um recent news about them. Who are their competitors, how are they stacking in the market, have they made any recent acquisitions? Um, you know, what's happened to them recently, and you'll be able to then refer back to that during interview, understand their missions, values, challenges. Um, obviously make sure you go on the um interviewer's LinkedIn um profile as well. You'll be able to see who they are, what their background is, it makes you feel more confident, and you might be able to build a little bit of a rapport with them as well. Because you might say, Oh, I can see you went to such and such university. I know somebody that went there. You know, it's just that little bit of small talk at the beginning, even if it's a virtual interview, I always think the first little bit is always like the lift bit. If you think if you go on a um to a face-to-face interview, you often you go in the lift and you're chatting, having a little bit of small talk, breaking the ice before you get into the interview room. It's the same, you can have a couple of minutes doing that. Um, so prepare for common interview questions. So have your answers ready. So you it's really easy now to prepare for interviews because you can pop the job ad into chat GPT, you could pop the um your CV into Chat GPT, you could ask Chat GPT what kind of questions you're going to be asked, and then you could actually speak thumb back, and then you could ask ChatGPT to give you feedback, and then that's it. You prepare, you don't need a friend to help you prepare for interviews anymore. Um, obviously, these are some common questions. So tell me about yourself, what your strengths and weaknesses, why do you want to work here? Make sure you're using the STAR method, the star technique for behavioral questions. So that's the situation, the task, what you achieved, and the result. That's really important, that result bit. Um, but yeah, all the specific questions use AI to help you with your preparation and use it to give you feedback as well. Make sure it gives you honest feedback because that's one thing I don't like about Chat ChiPT. It can give you quite flattering feedback. Um, make sure you dress appropriately for the role, even if it's on Zoom, even if it's on Teams, make sure you look quite smart on the top half. Um, I do know, you know, when I've worked in for Incorpora, I know somebody that was rejected for a role because they didn't wear a tie, for example. Um, yet that person might think, well, I didn't want to work for that organization, because um, you know, it might not have met their values, but I think it's always best to err on the side of caution and make sure you dress appropriately for the role. Even if day to day everyone just wears sweatpants and trainers, actually, you don't know who's interviewing you, what their expectations are, just play it safe, just dress smart, arrive early. So, obviously, if it's teens or Zoom, just arrive a couple of minutes early, make sure everything's plugged in, you've got enough charge. Um, obviously, if it's face-to-face, make sure you're gonna arrive, you know, plan to arrive there early so you're not rushing, you're not late. Make you can bring copies of your CV so you can refer back down to your experience, but try and maintain the eye contact. So, when you're particularly on like a Zoom or a Teams, it's quite easy not to have eye contact because you're often looking at that person and therefore you've lost eye contact. Um, so look when you are speaking, look into the camera rather than yourself or them because it's just gonna just connect more with that um interview if you are looking at them. So that is through the camera. Um, obviously, face-to-face, make sure you've got confident body language, good handshake, etc. And then the follow-up, the follow-up's really important because not many people send a follow-up. Um, and yeah, and it really does help you stand out because um, like I said, not many people do it. So you'll want to be sending a personalized thank you within 24 hours, briefly mention something memorable for the inter from the interview and reiterate your enthusiasm for the roles. This is a really nice um email that Claire, our marketing manager, sent um Adele, our recruitment manager, when she was interviewing with us, and it just helped us stand out because she I think she was the only one that did it. So it's really simple things like that that are gonna help you stand out, and it doesn't take a lot of effort. Obviously, um, there's my book Flex. I've got the copy there as well. Um, it's in all bookshops um at the moment, and in that we've um I've got loads of chapters on CVs, interviews, LinkedIn, etc., um, that offer much more of a deep dive so you can get your CV um ready and LinkedIn and interview and get those jobs. So um, then next steps obviously you can DIY with today's tips, you can update your CV structure and um job-specific keywords. Obviously, hopefully, all the advice I've helped um offered will help with your LinkedIn and your about section and starting to build your network. But we also have um I also offer one-to-ones, um CV glow up or LinkedIn level up. Um, and this is a one-to-one with me where we go, you know, if it's your CV, we go line by line, making sure it really sells you and your experience in a way that will resonate with recruiters and employers with your LinkedIn. Um, again, we I develop a complete strategy for you based upon your aspirations. I write your um headline, I write your about section, suggest some posts as well that you can do um to get you started on the platform. So there I use QR codes um for you to book your session, and there are also bonuses available for the first three people to book after this session as well. I only take um maximum of four clients a month. So if you want to book your session, scan the Q QR code um now, and then let me check if there are any other questions. Um someone said what are the major differences between CV and LinkedIn profile? Yeah, on the experience bit of your LinkedIn, it doesn't need to be that bit, it doesn't need to be as detailed, I don't think, as your CV experience bit because um you can sell yourself much more in your about and your um headline, and then once a recruiter, to be honest, a recruiter is sending out mass messages, and once then they get a buy then you from you, then you can send them your CV with more information. But with that bit, just that's really important where you putting the keywords in as well. Um, should the key experience section on your CV link to be a copy and paste from CV? Yeah, I just don't think it needs to be as detailed, so maybe just more of the relevant or the top um top things, and the because your CV, otherwise it's gonna be a really, really long LinkedIn profile. Um I someone's asked about stalking. I don't think it's stalking, I think it's just research. And I think if I was interviewing someone and they'd gone on my LinkedIn profile and I was interviewing them, it would not raise alarm bells for me. I'd be quite impressed that they'd looked on my um my profile. Um someone's asked about recruiter biases, e.g. ageism, etc. Yeah, so often I just put like if someone's been working a long, long time, then I will include when I'm writing some CP, maybe the last the roles from the last 20 years or so, and then And particularly if it's not what they're doing now. So maybe they work in HR now, but they used to work in teaching. So I might just put a pre-HR career and then just leave it at that. So I tend to keep if it's not relevant to what they're doing now, I tend to keep it like as a pre or um and then stop including old roles. So yeah, I tend to have like a bit of a cut-off. Um yeah, I do know what you mean about ageism. Um Nikki's asked about the career break, personal time off. Like I said, I just wouldn't keep putting these career breaks in your CVs because honestly, I don't think people notice them. I think we're much more conscious about them than anybody else. And chances are they're not going to notice them. And if they do say, oh, why weren't you working for six months or two years or whatever it was, then you can explain. Um da da da da. Alkana says, How should I approach LinkedIn connections when I want to ask about vacancies or opportunities without coming across as too direct? I could I could just say if they've got if they're already advertising for a vacancy, then I don't see any harm in saying I can see you're advertising for this role. Um, you know, I'd love to apply. Have you got any tips? Or you know, what sort of candidate are you looking for? I think if they're already advertising the opportunity, then you can be quite direct. If they're not, then you might just sort of throw your hat in the ring saying, you know, I'm just really wanted to connect. I'm really interested in this particular space that you work in. Appreciate you might not be recruiting at the moment. If you are recruiting, please do bear me in mind. And I'd, you know, if you can ever spare 20 minutes for a virtual coffee, I'd love to learn a little bit more about you and your business, something like that. Um, I think I've covered all the questions or pretty much all the questions. Um, the next session we are running is at quarter past two, um, so in 15 minutes, um, with the lovely Leanne Cooper. And that is all about how to build your confidence. She is brilliant, she's um a fantastic career coach, and that is all about how to build your confidence, not just in your job search, but also in your career. So make sure you come to that session. All the links um to all the sessions are on the investing inwomen um.co.uk job board. It's under the events section. So make sure you come to that um because that will really help you. If you can't make it live, then please do register and you the replay will be sent shortly. All right, thank you so much for your time today. See you soon. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Work It Like a Mum podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe. And don't forget to share the link with a friend. If you're on LinkedIn, please send me a connection request at Elizabeth Willet and let me know your thoughts on this week's episode. You can also follow my recruitment site, Investing in Women, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Until next time, keep on chasing your biggest dream.